Chapter 24 – Strange Finds

Applejack opened her eyes as she was placed down on a stretcher, Hulon and Fluttershy trying to rush her into the garage and Blade fluttering above her, "Howdy Pardner." she groaned as she finally began to come to.

"Applejack?" Blade asked as he kept moving with the medics, "You ok?"

"Yeah." she said calmly as she let her mind focus, and the slight bit of pain begin to appear. She reached for the wound on her head as it started to hurt.

"Don't touch!" Hulon said, and Blade stayed behind as they moved her into a designated medical room.

It was several minutes before Fluttershy came back out, a smile on her face as she beamed with pride, "You shouldn't have moved her like that." she told Blade as the smile turned into a frown, and then back to a smile, "But I'm glad you did." and wrapped her hooves around him.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because moving an injured pony could easily injure them further, but in this case, it didn't. I'm so glad that she's alright." the yellow pegasus said.

"How bad was she?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Just a little banged up, mostly a blow to the head." Hulon said as she exited the room, "Just a few more minutes under the healing light and she'll be good as new."

Fluttershy turned to Twiggs, "I still want her to take it easy for the rest of the day." she said.

"Yer the doc, doc." the skinny Treeopon said and lifted his hands to confirm.

"Can I see her?" they all heard Pilit ask from the back.

Fluttershy looked to Hulon, and the two of them smiled, "I don't see why not." the Hylop said and opened the door for her.

Pilit was a bit hesitant at first, then moved with caution. There, on a bed with several sky-blue lights focused on several spots on the pony as she lay on her belly. "Tell ya what." Applejack said as the little Treeopon came closer, "These lights ain't nothin compared ta Fluttershy's old helmet." This slightly confused Pilit for a second, right before she sat down next to the table, "And before ya go on tellin me I shouldn't a gone off by myself…" Instead of letting her finish, Pilit wrapped her arms around Applejack's neck, embracing the country pony in a tight hug, "Oof." Applejack grunted.

"I'm so sorry Applejack." Pilit told her.

"Fer what?" the earth pony asked as she tried to breathe.

Pilit let go of her, and looked her in the eyes, "I'm sorry for getting you hurt."

Applejack instantly put a hoof to her mouth, "I don't wanna hear none of that." she said sternly, "It weren't yer fault ah wandered off, it weren't yer fault we were there." she let her hoof drop from the Treeopon's mouth, the tears in Pilit's eyes stalled for the moment, "And it definitely weren't yer fault the thing toppled the way it did. Ya got nothin to apologize for." Then Applejack smiled, "But it was definitely worth it!"

"How?" Pilit asked.

"They made more than one B336. Ah found another busted up one in that racer." the orange pony said.

"Wait, you found a second B336?" Pilit asked, her shock suddenly expressing itself.

"Eyup." Applejack said, and just then the lights shut off. She stopped and patted the spot on her head to make sure it had healed just right, "Hooked inta that racer. Maybe they wanted ta demonstrate that one, and then show off the one in the crate." she explained as she got down from the bed.

"That's brilliant." Pilit said, "Performance and Style."

"And if they made two, maybe they made a third one." Applejack said with glee, "Or maybe more, just in case they started sellin. I mean, that's what ah'd do."

"Not with prototypes." Pilit said, "They'd probably make no more than they needed to showcase everything it's capable of."

"Dahling!" the two of them head Rarity say, and instantly recognized that they had exited the medical room, "How are you feeling?"

"The healing lights on Fluttershy's NanoPack were better and faster, but ah'm ready fer work!" she said and was instantly scolded by Fluttershy.

"Oh no you don't!" the shy pegasus said, "You're not going back in that ship until I clear you."

"But…" Applejack tried to argue but got interrupted by her own partner.

"You still need a bit of recovery time after something {snort} like that." Twiggs told her.

"Wait…" they herd Hulon ask, "These are the best healing lights on the market, how did you have better and faster ones?"

"NanoPack technology." Breeze said calmly as if it were one of the phrases he used to explain everything.

"But ah didn't need recovery time with Fluttershy's healing lights." Applejack argued.

"You also had Tremor augmenting your limbs at the time," Blade explained, "It was because of that you didn't reinjure yourself."

"We're not asking you to just lay down and do nothing." Writch said, calming the group, "We're asking you to just take it easy, maybe teach one of us to grow those daisies Tusks has been telling me about."

"Oh, oh. Me, me, me!" Pilit shouted excitedly as she raised her hand onto the air.

Almost half an hour later, Syls and Tris stood there, watching as Blade lifted a full-sized racer from the wreckage, "I wonder how it toppled like that?" Tris asked, "It seemed to perfectly stable when we inspected our side."

"Yeah," Syls said with suspicion and eyed the Sunik group across from them. She then looked up, just as Blade pulled the racer from the ship, "And how is he that strong again?" the smaller Dryskian asked the cyan pegasus next to her.

"He's alien I guess." Rainbow Dash said, "Said he was human but I doubt that's all of it."

"Even humans can't get that strong." Tris said.

The ship was gently set down, and instantly Twilight was there checking it out, "This is it!" she said, "A second B336!" Then she looked into the racer's end, the place Applejack had been found, the burned-out thruster end. "It's in near shambles." she said in near disappointment.

Pilit looked at the engine with her, "Looks like the entire back end exploded." she said and tapped the glowing stuff with her hoof-like finger, "What is this?" she asked, and Hulon appeared next to her.

The Hylop did the same thing, tapping the glowing material with her claw, "Some kind of fuel source?"

"It only started glowin like that when ah got near it." Applejack said as she made her way to them. "Maybe them files you found in those terminals might help?" she asked.

"Luckily the entire ship was set up on one big server." Pilit said as she pulled out her tablet, "I was able to do some hacking and bypassed some security software before being forced to do a mass data transfer." she said, and then sighed, "It's going to take me a long time to get through all this information."

"Maybe there's a way to organize it all?" Twilight asked as she grinned in anticipation.

"I could run an algorithm to narrow down my search, but other than that, I'm afraid it's going to be manual labor to get this much data organized." Pilit said and was instantly encompassed by Twilight's shadow.

"PLEASE LET ME ORGANIZE IT!" she asked as she pressed her nose to Pilit's nose.

"You used Twilight's trigger word." Spike explained with his eyes half laden.

"You can help?" Pilit asked unsure if this was the right course of action.

"YES!" the alicorn shouted as she lifted herself into the air in triumph.

"What did I just do?" Pilit asked herself.